The purpose of this paper is to reconstruct the existing power shifts theory and to test this theory using the case of the Pacific War between Japan and the United States. In this paper, I try to show that only the power shifts theory can explain the timing of the Pacific War by using a strong test method.According to the realist theory of power shifts, war is more likely when the distribution of power in the international system fluctuates dramatically. In particular, as many realists have pointed out, a declining state relative to a rival rising state has an incentive to launch a preventive war due to its vulnerability. It is tempted to start an early war in order to avoid a later war in an inferior power position.A state in a process of sharp decline might tend to open hostilities against a strong adversary even if the chance of winning is small, because it perceives that there are no other options for survival.The opening of the Pacific War between Japan and the United States in 1941 confirms these hypotheses of the power shifts theory. A careful research of the Pacific War shows that the fear of declining Japanese military and economic power led Japanese policymakers to perceive that a war against the United States was the only option for survival. The United States imposed a total oil embargo on Japan in July 1941. This economic sanction made Japan extremely vulnerable because almost all of the oil consumed in Japan was imported from the United States. Without its oil supply, the Japanese navy would soon have been unable to operate and the Japanese economy would have fallen into deep recession.The Japanese war leaders faced a serious dilemma: they had to choose between a war with no hope of total victory and the collapse of imperial Japan. In the eyes of the Japanese leaders, a war with the United States was a better option than the end of the Japanese empire because Japan’s navy at that time had a slight superiority against the US navy in the Asia-Pacific region.However, the rapid build-up of the US navy was threatening Japan’s military advantage. To avoid military inferiority in the near future, Japan decided to fight the United States sooner rather than later.This outcome cannot be explained in terms of any other domestic factor than the systemic factor.In other words, the power shifts theory provides a unique explanation of the Pacific War.Therefore, the theory of power shifts is validated through this case study.

Indonesia’s post-Suharto governments have conducted democratic elections every five years since 1999 for both parliaments and presidency. The latest elections in 2014 showed a heated battle between two presidential contenders, namely Joko Widodo (popularly called Jokowi)—the Governor of Jakarta—and Prabowo Subianto who led his right-wing political party, Gerindra. The victory of Jokowi in the presidential election has widely been seen as a success story of ordinary man with no elite background to enjoy strong grass-roots support. Jokowi’s rise to Indonesia’s seventh president is therefore evaluated both domestically and internationally as a critical step towards the country’s democratic consolidation. However, the fact that Prabowo—who was Suharto’s son-in-law and a top army general during the authoritarian days—gained 47% of total votes and performed a close contest with Jokowi should not be ignored to understand the nature of electoral democracy in post-Suharto Indonesia. Why could Prabowo, a legacy of the authoritarian heyday, gain such a large number of votes and become a serious threat to Jokowi? It was antiforeign nationalism and Suharto-era romanticism that characterized Prabowo’s electoral appeal. On the one hand, he clamored for the return to good old days in facing today’s ‘excessive’ democracy heavily influenced by the West. On the other hand, he openly criticized that foreign companies operating in Indonesia are predators who exploit the country’s economic resources, insisting on the need for propelling protectionism in various sectors in the name of saving the country. If he were the winner of the 2014 presidential election, Indonesia’s democratic outlook would be very different. This article examines the dynamics of Prabowo’s electoral challenge and reveals socio-economic structures that contributed to his vote mobilization. I argue that Prabowo’s challenge has been discussed mostly in the context of his personal political ambition, but it actually goes beyond that and resonates with socio-economic cleavages that have been deepened under the previous government led by President Yudhoyono (2004–2014). Thus, the article concludes, it is possible that a similar challenge will recur even without Prabowo in the future, and, to understand such a threat to democratic consolidation, it is important for us to ‘de-personalize’ Prabowo’s challenge and examine the socio-economic vulnerability that creates wider political space for right-wing conservative elitism to maneuver in the age of globalization.

During the 2000s, grass-root xenophobic movements have developed in East Asian countries. In Japan, many groups calling themselves “Conservatives In Action” and within them, the core group called “Zaitokukai” have been criticized by many people for their use of hate speech. Counter-protesters have fought them not only on the street but also on the internet.The radicalization of mass media discourse has been identified by critics. For example, “Book Lovers Against Racism” (BLAR) condemns publications containing xenophobic figures as “hate books.” Influenced by those books, Conservatives In Action and Zaitokukai have developed their own mass media organization and discourse.Although people criticize the current trend of books that contain bitter criticisms of China, South Korea, and North Korea as “hate books,” such labeling tends to obfuscate the differences between Old and New Conservative media. In fact, while New Conservative media uses hate speech as an “effective measure,” many Old Conservative media sources criticize the practice.This paper explores the magazine Japanism as an example of New Conservative media speech. Seirindo, the publisher of Japanism, has published books by former Zaitokukai leader Makoto Sakurai. His books were meant to encourage the Conservatives In Action and Zaitokukai.This paper also compares the perspectives of Old Conservative media, using the example of Seiron, with those of New Conservative media, using the example of Japanism, to explore the respective views of Old and New Conservative media on China, South Korea, and North Korea.Some critics believe views expressed by Old and New conservative media exist in different methodologies but are based on the same idea. This paper reveals that their differences exist not only in their methodologies but also in their ideas. Specifically, while their perspectives on China are similar, their perspectives on South Korea and North Korea are quite different. Before the main analysis, this paper follows the long-term change of the social movement led by Zaitokukai to focus on the initial split of the two conservative groups. After that, several specific differences between Old and New Conservative media are discussed.

Thai politics has become chaotic since 2006 due to democratization and the tenacious attempts to oppose it. Democratization advanced slowly from the 1970s and accelerated in the 1990s, partly because the military, politically influential for a long time since 1932, retreated from politics after 1992. It became possible for the people to choose the prime minister and the government through general elections. However, anti-democratic demonstrators who felt unhappy with democratization appeared in 2005. They paid little respect to elections results and, instead, asked the monarchy to dismiss the prime minister and appoint a new one. They formed the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) in 2006. There have been three waves of de-democratization. Anti-democratic forces, spearheaded by PAD, included judicial institutions and the military as the main actors. They successfully toppled elected governments in 2006, 2008 and 2014. In 2013, the People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC), led by several politicians of the opposition Democrat Party, assumed the role of commanding demonstrators in place of PAD. Court verdicts and military intervention have become more instrumental in the change of national leaders than national elections. This essay will analyze how the anti-democratic forces succeeded in negating election results and depriving the people of power. In their struggle against democratization, they have resorted to a kind of nationalism. The nationalism is neither ethnic nor exclusionist, partly since democratization in Thailand was not the product of external pressure. Rather it is nationalism opposed to democracy, or popular sovereignty. It gives the highest priority to the monarchy rather than the people. The Thai historian Thongchai Winichakul has called it “royal nationalism.” The Thai political regime officially stipulated in the constitutions since 1978 has been “a democratic regime with the monarch as the head of the state.” The bizarre feature of this regime is that the monarch and the people are co-owners of sovereign power. It is not a democratic regime based on the principle of popular sovereignty. The monarchy is not necessarily under the constitution. Respective percentage shares in sovereign power between the monarchy and the people have never been fixed. It is quite reasonable to allege that the monarchy holds the larger share in order to negate or dilute the democratic legitimacy of elected politicians. This is the reason why the anti-democratic forces, PAD/PDRC, the military and the judiciary have pledged their allegiance to the monarchy and have lavished the highest laudatory statements on the monarchy. Thus the undemocratic forces, unhappy with the advancement of electoral democracy undermining their conventional power and privileges (for example, the royalists hoping for an expanded role for the monarchy, and the urban middle-class feeling disadvantaged due to their numerical inferiority) have supported “royal nationalism.”

To control Christians and their religious activities, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) established the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) committees in 1954 and required Protestant churches to register with these committees. However, the number of non-registered house churches has been growing rapidly since the end of the Cultural Revolution. During the first decade of the 21st century, new house churches, whose leading members are students and intellectuals, developed in large cities. This paper studies the Chinese government’s response to the development of Protestant churches. The national government has devolved the mandate to develop religious policies to local government in order to address concerns about Protestant churches. Provincial governments have a mandate to establish regulations for religious affairs, and some have established regulations that allow local churches in their jurisdiction to receive donations from Christian organizations abroad. Local governments adopt these policies in order to encourage Protestant churches to supply welfare and public services to the residents instead of the government. In 2001, the CCP central committee decided to build networks of religious affairs management among governments of counties, townships, and villages to post religious affairs staff to a grassroots community. However, local governments have not been willing to build these networks or strengthen the management of Protestant churches for the following reasons. First, local governments want the churches to provide public services. Second, they emphasize economic development rather than religious affairs management in their jurisdictions. Third, they have been ordered to reduce and simplify government organizations by the central government; hence, it is difficult to increase the number of staff members assigned to religious affairs. On the other hand, some local governments and churches registered with TSPM committees have begun to approach individual house churches directly. TSPM churches provide pastoral work, services, and materials for some house churches. The government is trying to apply this approach across the country, but even some pastors of TSPM churches have doubts about this approach because some house churches fundamentally do not want to involve with the government or TSPM churches. Meanwhile, some local governments scout out house churches and order them to dissolve if they have connections with hostile forces abroad. Through these analyses, this paper reveals that the Chinese government has been confronting challenges in implementing policies for church affairs management because each stakeholder has different priorities.

During the Vietnam War from 1965 to 1973, more than 310,000 Korean soldiers were dispatched to Vietnam. The killings of many Vietnamese civilians that occurred during this period are often mentioned in the recent ‘anti-Korean sentiment’ boom in Japan. This article discusses narratives of the memory of killings in both Korea and Vietnam. At the end of the 20th century in South Korea, what was once a ‘bravery story’ that killed ‘Aka (Communist)’ began to be viewed as an event that ‘killed civilians’. This difficulty in facing the reality of the home country’s negative history resulted in divided public opinion. A Korean NGO, NAWAURI, has attempted to contribute to future peace by apologizing to the Vietnamese people, listening to the people who survived from the killings, and understanding victims’ feelings. On the other hand, in Vietnam, based on the slogan ‘Close the past and head towards the future’, Vietnamese survivors can only mention the historical recognition of the war in a way that does not affect international relations. This slogan has not only been simply championed by the state but also become a national consciousness, so there is little movement to record war memories of the general people so as to convey them to posterity. The slogan suppresses the honest feelings of survivors of mass killings, who have been forced to live difficult lives. The national history of the Vietnam War, therefore, is a story of the brilliant triumph of the North Vietnamese army, or the National Liberation Front, who fought risking their lives. As a result, memories of mass killings that are unrelated to the victory would inevitably be unrecognized in Vietnamese national history. This means that when the state regulates memories and constitutes it as ‘the history of so-and-so country’, only favourable events are recorded, and some memories that do not promote nationalism are truncated. Memories of mass killings by the Korean army usually disappear with the death of the survivors, but ironically, the activities of the Korean NGO, which is revealing war memories of survivors in an attempt to ensure future peace, are contributing to the healing of the survivors and also to maintaining diverse war memories that are not subsumed by the state.

The aim of this paper is to raise a new concept; namely, the “China Rise Syndrome”, which is based on the concentric spreading characteristics for analyzing the phenomena of the conflicts in four different levels due to the rise of China. The paper emphasizes the steadfast rejection of democratization under the circumstances of rapid growth of power is the origin of the syndrome. Before the rise of China, the negative influence exercised by the authoritarian CCP was only limited in mainland China. However, it has been spreading quickly to other territories outside the country while corresponding with the growth of China’s power; firstly, Hong Kong; secondly, Taiwan; thirdly, the neighboring countries with which China has sovereignty disputes over the nearby islands, and lastly, the rest of the world. In this period, CCP‘s China backed by her exponential growth of political, economic and military power tends to press severely her ideology against the challenges from the outside world, thus inducing varied conflicts. There are three major findings in this paper: Firstly, Hong Kong and Taiwan, China’s “closest peripheries”, experience interferences and threats from China much more directly and fiercely than others, and on the other hand, were also driven to the most intense rebellions. Secondly, although China claims her territorial sovereignty on both Hong Kong and Taiwan simultaneously, the speed of Chinization in Hong Kong is faster than Taiwan which is still cherishing her independence from China. Thirdly, with the Chinization phenomena in Hong Kong and Taiwan and the anti-democracy virus of China Rise running alongside, the people’s local identity and the centrifugal force away from China in both societies have been staying at the strongest in history. This paper lays stress upon the phenomena of Chinization and the rebellions against China in both Hong Kong and Taiwan are the paramount observation points in understanding how the Chinese Value, the Chinese Model, and the Chinese System in the era of China Rise spread externally, and how do they induce misgivings, tension, threats, panic and collision with the outside world and how do they influence the world order.

The 2014 Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong succeeded in mobilizing large number of people by demanding democracy which meets “international standards” and by deteriorating “Hong Kong–China conflict”. However, there is a difference of nature between “international standards” and “Hong Kong–China conflict”. The former represents elitist value and the supporters of the international standards prefer liberal and peaceful activities, while the latter is an issue particular to Hong Kong, and people demanding to solve the issue tends to criticize those westernized elites who are apart from the Hong Kong society. They are Hong Kong nationalists and they accept violent resistance to a certain extent. During the prolonged Umbrella Movement, nationalists criticized liberal leaders of the movement and the dispute split the movement. After the movement, Liberal members formed “Self-determination groups” who insists that Hong Kong people should determine their own political future through referendum. And nationalists formed “Localist groups” who see Hong Kong people as a nation and expel mainlanders. Although there exists conflict between the Self-determination groups and the Localist groups, both of them rely on political freedom which enables political activities on the street and rule of law which protects the rights of opposition. Although both political freedom and rule of law in Hong Kong are now under threat to a certain extent, internet freedom and judicial independence is guaranteed so far. When the government tries to infringe on it, both Self-determination groups and Localist groups resist strongly. And both groups are in opposition to the Chinese central government. Both “democratic self-determination” which liberals demands and “self-determination of nations” which localists demands are not acceptable for the central government. Central government tries to isolate “a very few” pro-independence groups by co-opting democrats and moderate localists. But if the central government take action to expel radicals, they would make an enemy of liberals at the same time. In the Legislative Council election on 4th Sep. 2016, 6 members of the new political groups (3 candidates from “Self-determination groups” and 3 candidates from “Localist groups”) were successfully elected. Legco may experience a huge change by accepting new members of new generations. But before the election, the Government rejected some candidates whom the Government saw as pro-independent and some newly elected Legco members were disqualified by not swearing allegiance to the PRC. They brought some actions against the Government and the new political groups which arose from street politics are to continue its fight against the Government both in the parliament and court.